Posted by
Emmett of the Unblinking Eye on Friday, October 13, 2006 7:20:57 PM
You don't train much to be a parent. The guidebooks are iffy, at best, and flat wrong, at worst. But one invariable rule exists: if you promise your daughter a pony, don't bring home a badger.
Which brings us to "
Man of the Year", the latest effort by writer and director
Barry Levinson. Now, if you watch
the trailer, it's crystal clear that what you have to look forward to is a Robin Williams "laff riot". And that is exactly what the filmmakers (apparently) want you to think, because that is what will get you and your money through the door. But that is absolutely
not what you're going to get. Instead of an off-the-wall comedy -- and given the premise, it could well have been that -- what you get is a fairly dark, very political allegory on the risks of computerized voting and our media culture. Are there laughs? Well, smirks maybe, perhaps a couple of chuckles, maybe a guffaw here and there. But they're few and far between.
Which is what makes the movie so hard to fairly review. When you have been told that your blind date has a great personality, you expect that
might be true, but you know that he or she will defiinitely be ugly. When it turns out he or she is gorgeous but dull as dirt, it takes a while for you to adjust to your dashed expectations. And having done so, I have to admit that the movie, for what it is, is not bad. Not good, but not bad.
Laura Linney shows why she is a truly great film actress as she portrays the compjuter company employee who discovers the computer glitch and is then stalked, drugged, defamed, nearly killed and generally hounded by the powers of Silicon Valley.
Jeff Goldblum is at his smarmy best as the company's lawyer, and Lewis Black gets the chance to almost be funny at times (but not nearly as unleashed as he was in the recent
Accepted).
Williams is, for good or bad, Williams, and you either like him or you don't. And although the story is interesting, if poorly executed and more-than-a-bit implausible, the romance between Williams and Linney never takes off, or makes much sense.
So should you see it? If you liked
Wag the Dog, and are willing to settle for much less, it may be worth your entertainment dollar. But if you're expecting
Dave (a much better film), go find it and let this dog lie.